Halong Bay Trip

One of the main things and probably the most popular thing to do in Vietnam is a Halong Bay boat trip. Halong Bay is  a 4 hour bus from Hanoi and there are what seems like thousands of companies that do trips. I read on line that you get what you pay for so I decided to book with the hostel that i was staying (Hanoi Backpackers) at because it was a big backpackers place and the trip was a little more pricey so it should have been good. The tours that they offered were a 2 day 1 night & 3 days 2 nights. I chose the second because the first one didnt really make sense. You will see why later.

Our junk boat

I got up super early and dragged all my stuff out into the hallway to pack so i wouldnt wake the other people sleeping in my dorm. Went downstairs and checked my bag in the storage room and then stood with the big group of other people that were going on the trip as well. There was probably just under 50 of us so it was actually a pretty big group. Then we all piled into the bus and drove to the dock. I dozed off a bit which was good cause it made it seem shorter. Once we got to the dock there were heaps of people there. It seems like all the tour groups switch passengers at about noon all at the same time. so every single boat had people getting off and people getting on. There were loads of tour buses everywhere with people going on and off as well. We got our ticket and went to the transfer boat to take us to our junk boat. A junk boat is the boat that everyone takes to see Halong bay, Not sure why they are called that because some of them are actually really nice. Ours was part of the Jolly Roger fleet as they called it. We then went out into the bay and floated around for a couple of hours as we had lunch. The scenery in Halong bay was amazing. Giant mountains shooting out of the blue ocean. All around there were old wooden boats floating around just like ours. After hanging out on the roof for a bit bathing in the sun we went downstairs to have lunch. There was so much food. tables and tables of plates piled high with western and Vietnamese foods. After stuffing ourselves we we met up with the other boat of people that was on our tour and the two tied together at they spot we were staying for the night. Everyone went up on the roof and we were allowed to jump off the 3rd floor into the water. Mostly everyone jumped or was pushed off the edge of the boat, and most of those just hung out in the water by the boat for a while. There was a couple people, me included who jumped off and climbed back up the boat to jump off again many times. One of our tour guides said that if anyone did a font flip off the boat he would but them 3 drinks, and since I was nearest to him i was pressured to go. Luckily for me this wasnt my first diving experience, and knowing that a front flip from this height would be silly I climbed over the railing and did a front 1 1/2 landing in a dive. The surprised look on his face was pretty funny to see when I looked up at the boat from in the water. I'm guessing that he probably said that to every tour that he did and no one every was able to do it. I never ended up getting my drinks though, not that i really wanted them but it was the principle that counts right? After that a back flip entertained the crowd. Some one said "you should film that!" and i was thinking great idea! so i went and grabbed my "waterproof" camera and then held it in my hand as i did another back flip filming myself. Climbed back up the boat and a couple guys decided that they were going to go swim to the beach. I joined in and left my camera with the rest of my stuff on the beach chair.
 Swam there, wasnt interesting, not real sand only shells, so we headed back to the boat. I decided I wanted to see the video that i took only to discover that my camera wouldnt turn on. I remembered the feeling that I had with my last waterproof camera when it wouldnt turn on only for me to discover once opening it that there was water on the inside. I was super bummed, but decided not to care because I was in such an amazing place that it wasnt worth me worrying about. Thankfully it was easy to find rice being that I was in an Asian country so I got some from the chef and put my camera in it hoping that it would return to its old working self.

The guides rounded everyone up and threw us all into kayaks and we paddled out to a cave. The cave had a pretty large opening and we could watch the sun set from in the kayaks which was a great sight, which i would have taken pictures but..... Once at the caves one of the Vietnamese guides told us the story of how the mountains came to be. Hard to understand his accent at times but what i got from the story was that Halong Bay was where Mother Dragon lived in the sky and when the mainland came under attack by ships she came down from the sky and shot pearls out of her mouth that landed in the ocean. The pearls grew and tuned into the mountains and since the boats attacking didnt have breaks they crashed into the mountains and the mainland was saved. We explored the cave a little bit and then climbed back into our boats and headed for the "fishing village". Which was really just a place where the kayak rental place was floating and a couple houses attached. Some people tried to sell us things but we just got on a transfer boat and headed back to ours.
We went and had dinner which was again copious amounts of food and then they said for everyone to go upstairs while they set up the games for the evening. Couple people plugged in their ipod and we all sat on the roof quite content just hanging out chatting to each other. We decided that the drinking games were being organized for the sole purpose that everyone would buy a while bunch of drinks and they could rake in the dough from us. Which they did.
I will spare you the details of the games that went on and the things that occurred which i only remember cause i didnt drink and later had to recount to the people in the morning. I eventually fell asleep on one of the chairs on the roof and woke up at 6 or something to head back to my room which the guy i was staying with had locked me out of. We got up 2 or so hours later so that the people who were only doing the 2 day 1 night option could get on one boat and head back to the docks.

Everyone stumbled out of their rooms wearing sunglasses and zombied their way though breakfast. Then out boats separated and we headed off to "Cast Away Island" (the private island owned by the company).

The island  was actually pretty cool, they had imported a whole bunch of sand so it was a really nice beach and it was in its own little bay. everyone chilled on the beach and some people made their way straight to the huts that we would be sleeping in so that they would recover from the night before. Then we had lunch which consisted of noodles and sandwiches, good mix? and people signed up for tubing or water skiing. Deciding that water skiing indeed sounded cool thought that the chance of me struggling with it so much that i wouldnt enjoy it was high. So not wanted to waste the amazing location i opted for the tubing which sounded just is great. I was in the first group to go and had a blast, one of the guides who lived on the island gave us signals of things that we had to do like swap tubes and jump from one to the other. The driver did some crazy turns and went and pretty high speeds which was probably not the best for the boat but a super good time for us. Once finished we headed back to the beach and other people headed out for their turns. We swam around in the water and people played volleyball, rugby, and other beach sports and they waited for their turn.
A couple of us wandered around the back an collected a bunch of cool shells. I used some rope that i had found on the beach and taken apart to make some necklaces for the people who ad really gotten to know. They said they really liked them and i was giving the local market people a run for their money.

Climb I did,
 You can see the little guy in the orange

Another one of the things that you could do while on the island was rock climbing which i couldnt pass up on the opportunity.  There were 3 climbs that the climbing company was running, the middle being used by the expert climbers that were with the company and the right being used by the guy that got there before me i was thrown on the left one which was probably the medium of the tree. I think I only made it to the top because I had some rock climbing experience in the past from back home and I couldnt imagine anyone who had never climbed before being able to do it. From far away the mountains look amazing but up close the rock looks like it had grown almost like tree roots with some parts super windy and others smooth. There were times where i had to shove my arm up to my shoulder into a crack to grab onto something to make my way up to the top. Not going to lie i wanted to give up about half way and come back down.  Then i had an "extreme adventure traveller" inspiration moment and decided that they must have to fight with their muscles all the time with stuff like this and made it through. Once at the top the view was amazing, the sun was just starting to set and it was just wonderful.
Came back down and it was like some sort of religious moment because my body kinda gave out on my and i was shaking all over. I thanked the guy that was belaying my (from Quebec) and went back to the group. Someone asked me if i just went swimming and i looked down to notice that all of my clothes were completely soaked through with sweat. Yes gross to hear but i though it was an important details. I went and jumped into the ocean and then went and had a shower just in time for dinner.
Dinner was pretty good again way too much food was consumed and then the guides shooed us off again to set up more games. These ones were pretty fun and it didnt actually get messy like the night before. At around midnight lots of people went into the ocean to see the phosphorescents. Super cool experience. As you swam around you arms and anything that moved glowed like green glitter was leaching from your skin. One of the guys kept saying that this was the best day in his life. His explanation was  "just look at the water (phosphorescents),then look around you (the mountains) then look up (the stars in the sky)". It was pretty amazing.
After that lots of people went to bed early as they were still recovering from the night before. Not the best sleep i had i must say, the blanket at the end of my bed was some how moist so i ended up sleeping without it and the foam pads that there were to sleep on compressed to nothing pretty quick.

It wasnt too long though until we were up eating breakfast and getting read to get back on the boat. The ride back was the  same as the ride there, everyone just hung out on the roof and laid in the sun. Over all it was an amazing experience. I am glad i spent the extra money and did it with a good tour company and with a younger crowd so that i wasnt stuck with a bunch of old people eating bad food.
I would recommend the 3 days 2 nights one to anyone and strongly discourage the 2 days 1 night one. If you every go to Vietnam you have to do a Halong Bay trip.

The clever ones of you are probably wondering "But Hayden, I thought your camera broke? How did you get all of these pictures?"
Well thanks to some amazing friends of mine that i met let me put my memory card in their cameras so i could take some pictures when they werent using them.
So go look at the pictures in the Halong Bay album on the left.
Remember to comment and pass on!